Facts of Tea

How much caffeine is considered safe?

The Food Guide to healthy eating recommends caffeine consumption in moderation. According to the current findings for most people an intake of caffeine up to 400-450 mg per day does not increase the risk of heart disease, hypertension or have an adverse effect on pregnancy or the foetus. This level of caffeine is equivalent to approximately 10 to 12 cups (170 ml) of tea per day.

As explained by Prof. T. W. Wickremanayake (Ph D Glasgow, Visiting Research Fellow Glasgow, Wisconsin and California) the pharmacologically active dose of caffeine is 200 mg and the acute fatal dose is about 10,000 mg. Those who drink more than 5 cups of coffee or 9 cups of tea are regularly consuming 5% of the fatal dose. The T 1/2 of caffeine is about 3 hr. It is excreted quickly in urine as 1-methyl uric acid.

Prof. Wickramanayake also states the following. “There is a positive association between Myocardial infarction and heavy coffee consumption, whereas the correlation between infarction and heavy tea drinking is negative. In rats and rabbits maintained on atherogenic diets, caffeine increases serum lipid concentrations and therefore the incidence of atherosclerosis. Coffee has the same action but not decaffeinated coffee. Tea has the opposite effect to caffeine alone or caffeine in coffee. Similar results have been reported in a study of human subjects with and without heart ailments. Russian scientists have demonstrated that a course of tea consumption improved the condition of atherosclerotic patients. The alleged adverse effects of caffeine are apparently eliminated in tea either by a modification of its activity by other constituents, or by the opposing action of some anti-atherosclerotic constituent.”